


Love Lasts

by Awesomepie3221



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Crying, F/M, Sad, Uncle Happy, Uncle Peter, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 16:54:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18664480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awesomepie3221/pseuds/Awesomepie3221
Summary: Even if Morgan doesn't remember her dad, the love he left the world with is impossible to forget.





	1. Chapter 1

Pepper has a feeling Morgan doesn't quite understand where her father went. She tried to explain death to her, but it isn't as simple as it seems. To her, she is sure her father is only gone for a limited time, or possibly missing, but not permanently gone. When Pepper tells her Tony died protecting the world, she calls it cool and then runs off.

She may not understand because Happy is there now, making up for five years of lost time with his pseudo-niece. He chases her around outside and inside, and buys her McDonald's happy meals, and reads her bedtime stories. He becomes her Tony in some small way to Pepper, but in a replacing way to Morgan.

Morgan is too small to notice the difference between Happy and her father, but Pepper knows. Pepper sees when Happy gives her a popsicle, but doesn't wipe her mouth with his sleeve afterwards. Happy doesn't look at her all the time, a bright smile on his face because he had somehow made a family in the absolute tragedy of Thano's universe. He had made a happy ending in his failure.

And the ending was happy, wasn't it, even after everything? Tony had said nothing would happen to him. To Morgan, nothing had. Even if she didn't remember Tony once she became old enough to know Happy isn't and never was her father, she would remember his love. She would be able to feel it once she could understand why Tony died. She would know it once she was old enough to understand his hologram. She would know it from Pepper's stories of him, Happy's stories of him, Peter's stories of him, Steve's stories of him.

And she would know how much he loved Pepper. She would know how he removed the shrapnel by his heart for her, just to show he was willing to sacrifice his life as a superhero for her. She would know when she knew that Pepper willingly let him fight, when he didn't surprise her after so long. She would know because _she existed_.

And she would know no bounds to his love when she looked to the world and saw the endless beauty and knew that Tony died for _this_. He died to make everyone's families whole again, he died protecting all he had ever loved. He died making the happy ending for everyone in the universe, and the love was impossible to not feel.

When her uncle Peter first met her, he cried, and the love was right there for her to touch.

"She looks so much like him, Pepper." Pepper pulls Peter into a huge and lets him cry onto her shoulder, her own voice choking up.

"She acts like him too," she says.

Happy leads Morgan out of the room and distracts her with toys, and eventually Peter joins them, puffy eyed and tear stained cheeks. They fall asleep to a movie that night, Morgan asleep on Peter's lap.

When Steve Rogers comes over, cane in hand, shield absent in the other, he keeps Morgan up late telling stories about Tony and the good he did in the world, how he allowed him to have his own happy ending, and he would always twist his wedding ring as he told Morgan all about it, the only one he was willing to tell.

As she meets Clint's children and runs off to play with the youngest, who is still her age because of the snap, she knows they exist because Tony loved them.

She may not understand quite yet that her dad is gone, but she knows his love isn't gone. She can feel it in everything she does and everywhere she goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw Endgame yesterday and im seeing it again tomorrow. Im sad and im not even a tony fan


	2. Chapter 2

It is when she visits the Memorial to the Vanished in San Francisco does she realize what her dad did for the world. There is a statue of him before the memorial, naked of the Iron Man suit, but he wears a pair of sunglasses. She is told those where his favorite pair.

Under the statue is an etched plate. "The savior of the Vanished. 1970-2023." Ten years ago.

Names in the memorial have been scratched out, tradition falling into place so that those who were Vanished come and cross out their names from the list. Most no one ever crosses out their name completely, they don't want to risk losing the history.

Peter and Happy are excited to cross their names out and they run past the statue. Pepper stays with Morgan, and puts her arm around her.

"He'd be proud of you. Winning the science fair for recreating his suit." Morgan shrugs.

"All I had to do was follow exactly what he already made," she dismisses herself. Pepper tightens her grip on Morgan's shoulder.

"I wouldn't be able to do that. Teenage Tony wouldn't be able to do that. You're a genius, honey," Pepper compliments. Morgan smiles, hidden behind her hair.

They both look at the statue in silence for a few moments, Pepper's line of sight eventually landing on Peter who has one hand up in a thumbs up, the same hand holding the sharpie he used to cross out his name.

Some people put their signature next to their crossed out name, to show they truly are alive. The happy ones do that, the ones that came home to a stable family and a still well-off neighborhood.

"I remember him in small ways, sometimes," Morgan pipes up. The wind picks up and sends her hair flying out of her face. "I remember him telling me he loved me. I remember him comforting me when I scraped my knee. I remember ...wearing his Iron Man mask, I think, and him taking it away."

"You always got into his suit," Pepper says. Morgan looks at her with the brown eyes she got from her dad. His eyes were a little lighter.

"...What if I want to be Iron Man?"

Pepper's breath hitches in her throat. _What if I lose you? What if I lose my happy ending again?_

"You'd take it away from Harley?" is what she says, keeping her voice steady.

Morgan shakes her head. "Maybe he will want to retire early," she says. She locks her eyes onto Pepper's and suddenly Pepper understands that if Morgan wants to be Iron Man, she will be Iron Man. Pepper spent most of her life with Tony trying to control him and stop him from sacrificing his life to save the world, but in the end, Tony did it anyway. Pepper never had the ability to stop Tony, they just both tricked themselves into believing she did.

When Tony came to her with that one last internal debate, she knew she couldn't stop him. She never had before, had she? She couldn't even stop him from getting on an alien spaceship right after telling her he wanted a child. She sees that same reckless determination in Morgan's eyes.

"You will have to make the suit handle radiation better first," Pepper says, her one condition.

"I can do that," Morgan says brightly.

A tear trails down Pepper's cheek as she looks back at the statue. The sun is shining directly behind Tony's head, illuminating a halo around him. She wipes the tear away silently and slowly; Morgan doesn't notice.

The statue wears a wedding ring. Not Tony's actual ring, no, that one is locked away in the most durable lockbox Pepper could find. The ring the statue wears misses a few key details, but the sentiment is all there. It was Pepper's one request to the San Francisco mayor when he asked permission to build the statue.

Morgan wandered away without Pepper noticing. She is at the memorial now, looking at different names with Peter. Peter points out a few and Morgan nods her head as she listens to him ramble about whatever name. He's happy and his happiness spreads to Morgan.

Happy makes eye contact with Pepper, but he deliberately looks away. He hasn't wanted to look at the statue.

Pepper doesn't want to look away. She pays attention to how the sun frames the bronze and she can't help but remember that Tony helped save that natural beauty. Thanos did nothing to the sun, of course, there is no life on it, but Earth was bleak in its depression. The sun shone as brightly as normal, but with only half the population to enjoy it, it didn't have the same effect. And now it illuminates the one who gave it that effect back, who gave it its happy ending, who gave _everyone_ their happy ending.

She would remember what her husband sacrificed himself for in ten years down the line, twenty years, fifty years. She would make sure her grandchildren and her great grandchildren knew. She would make sure the history books knew.

But for now all she did was join Morgan and Peter and find all the names of the people she knew who her husband had brought back to life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im posting this in the theater to see the movie again im still sad


End file.
